(02-09-2014 01:08 PM)ClydeLee Wrote: Whose and what god is this? This is a different adaptation of God from the absolute classically defined God which you were discussing earlier. Altering this factors changes the argument being made.

I don't think there is a "classically defined God" in an absolute sense, because all human writing is relative to a perspective, so it's crucial to understand the writer's perspective and also his intent and target audience for the writing.

For example, Buddhism does actually have deities, and these are taught as literal to pre-rational thinkers.

Students at rational levels of development get a different story though, they are told the deities are symbolic, and actually represent different aspects of the self.

Back to my "god" definition: Beauty, Goodness and Truth aren't static qualities, they are process dynamics. And in fact, one tends to lead to the other, to have Goodness (intersubjectivity) you first need to have Beauty (2 or more subjectivities, e.g. actual individuals). My view is the Integral view that the process of emergent complexity actually unfolds through a dialectical process dynamic between these 3 principles:

Mapping that to the Chrisitan trinity:

Beauty (or Will): the holy spiritGoodness: the relationship with the son (jesus as the embodied face of god)Truth (the empty space of the cosmos which contains all entities): the father

If we consider "god" in the above image as the actual spiral, rather than the values of Beauty, Goodness and Truth themselves (even though those values are "faces of god"), then you'll notice the above spiral is in line with the truth claims of the christian trinity. Beauty, Goodness and Truth may not be reduced to each other, but each is one of the 3 "faces" (or primordial perspectives onto) God.

(02-09-2014 01:42 PM)ClydeLee Wrote: The idea of the Classical God is a well established concept and what the actual proposal of the problem of evil is addressing. The omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent idea of god.

If those aren't the god attributes you place onto god, you are moving into a different discussion.

I think I might have covered this one earlier on this thread in a bit more detail, but in summary:

If it's taken as a given that "god" is everything that is, e.g. god is everything that is actual.

If god is "everywhere", and if consciousness is an aspect of god (it must be, since we are an aspect of reality and we have it) - then god is omniscient, in the sense that everything that's meaningfully happening is happening in some sort of awareness somewhere. It's a distributed consciousness (I don't know what's happening in your awareness and vice versa) but considering consciousness itself as an absolute, then wherever something is in awareness, it's actually "in awareness" in an absolute sense.

I think it's a mistake to assume "omniscient" means the awareness occurs in a single mind-like structure that mirrors ours, I think that's anthropomorphising god. Insofar as "god" is aware of your personal corner of reality, his awareness and your awareness are one and the same. You literally are god, holding down that particular corner of 4D space-time.

Omnipotent is similar to the omniscient argument. Since god is everything, everything that happens is happening due to "the will of god".

(02-09-2014 01:42 PM)ClydeLee Wrote: The idea of the Classical God is a well established concept and what the actual proposal of the problem of evil is addressing. The omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent idea of god.

If those aren't the god attributes you place onto god, you are moving into a different discussion.

I think I might have covered this one earlier on this thread in a bit more detail, but in summary:

If it's taken as a given that "god" is everything that is, e.g. god is everything that is actual.

If god is "everywhere", and if consciousness is an aspect of god (it must be, since we are an aspect of reality and we have it) - then god is omniscient, in the sense that everything that's meaningfully happening is happening in some sort of awareness somewhere. It's a distributed consciousness (I don't know what's happening in your awareness and vice versa) but considering consciousness itself as an absolute, then wherever something is in awareness, it's actually "in awareness" in an absolute sense.

I think it's a mistake to assume "omniscient" means the awareness occurs in a single mind-like structure that mirrors ours, I think that's anthropomorphising god. Insofar as "god" is aware of your personal corner of reality, his awareness and your awareness are one and the same. You literally are god, holding down that particular corner of 4D space-time.

Omnipotent is similar to the omniscient argument. Since god is everything, everything that happens is happening due to "the will of god".

Phl

Once you start defining god as everything, then the concept is so dilute as to be meaningless.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

If god is "everywhere", and if consciousness is an aspect of god (it must be, since we are an aspect of reality and we have it) - then god is omniscient, in the sense that everything that's meaningfully happening is happening in some sort of awareness somewhere. It's a distributed consciousness (I don't know what's happening in your awareness and vice versa) but considering consciousness itself as an absolute, then wherever something is in awareness, it's actually "in awareness" in an absolute sense.

I think it's a mistake to assume "omniscient" means the awareness occurs in a single mind-like structure that mirrors ours, I think that's anthropomorphising god. Insofar as "god" is aware of your personal corner of reality, his awareness and your awareness are one and the same. You literally are god, holding down that particular corner of 4D space-time.

Omnipotent is similar to the omniscient argument. Since god is everything, everything that happens is happening due to "the will of god".

Phl

Once you start defining god as everything, then the concept is so dilute as to be meaningless.

Well for myself it does not dilute the concept in any way. Rather, it strengthens and clarifies it.

Perhaps it does dilute the common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity that's somehow manifest but yet separate from reality, but from that understanding of the word "god" I have already said that I am a strong atheist (that god does not exist).

In my opinion, that god is however just a symbolic entity put in religious texts for the benefit of pre-rational thinkers who aren't able to conceptualise abstract possibilities that are beyond the concrete.

I do not expect the pre-rational thinkers to agree with me btw, they'll argue that the god is actual, but that's because they are unable to understand what "symbolic" means.

(02-09-2014 03:36 PM)Chas Wrote: Once you start defining god as everything, then the concept is so dilute as to be meaningless.

Well for myself it does not dilute the concept in any way. Rather, it strengthens and clarifies it.

Perhaps it does dilute the common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity that's somehow manifest but yet separate from reality, but from that understanding of the word "god" I have already said that I am a strong atheist (that god does not exist).

In my opinion, that god is however just a symbolic entity put in religious texts for the benefit of pre-rational thinkers who aren't able to conceptualise abstract possibilities that are beyond the concrete.

I do not expect the pre-rational thinkers to agree with me btw, they'll argue that the god is actual, but that's because they are unable to understand what "symbolic" means.

Phil

Clearly, you are not an atheist. I have no 'common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity'. I simply don't accept the claims of theists as they have no evidence for them.

Just as you have no evidence for yours.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(02-09-2014 05:23 PM)phil.a Wrote: Well for myself it does not dilute the concept in any way. Rather, it strengthens and clarifies it.

Perhaps it does dilute the common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity that's somehow manifest but yet separate from reality, but from that understanding of the word "god" I have already said that I am a strong atheist (that god does not exist).

In my opinion, that god is however just a symbolic entity put in religious texts for the benefit of pre-rational thinkers who aren't able to conceptualise abstract possibilities that are beyond the concrete.

I do not expect the pre-rational thinkers to agree with me btw, they'll argue that the god is actual, but that's because they are unable to understand what "symbolic" means.

Phil

Clearly, you are not an atheist. I have no 'common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity'. I simply don't accept the claims of theists as they have no evidence for them.

Just as you have no evidence for yours.

Chas, I am going to hold you to your own standards here and respectfully request that you stop being so presumptuous. Ask me what I mean, don't presume you know and stop speaking on behalf of me.

If god is "everywhere", and if consciousness is an aspect of god (it must be, since we are an aspect of reality and we have it) - then god is omniscient, in the sense that everything that's meaningfully happening is happening in some sort of awareness somewhere. It's a distributed consciousness (I don't know what's happening in your awareness and vice versa) but considering consciousness itself as an absolute, then wherever something is in awareness, it's actually "in awareness" in an absolute sense.

I think it's a mistake to assume "omniscient" means the awareness occurs in a single mind-like structure that mirrors ours, I think that's anthropomorphising god. Insofar as "god" is aware of your personal corner of reality, his awareness and your awareness are one and the same. You literally are god, holding down that particular corner of 4D space-time.

Omnipotent is similar to the omniscient argument. Since god is everything, everything that happens is happening due to "the will of god".

Phl

Once you start defining god as everything, then the concept is so dilute as to be meaningless.

I see little practical difference between pantheism and atheism. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. -Camus

(02-09-2014 05:50 PM)Chas Wrote: Clearly, you are not an atheist. I have no 'common atheist conception of "god" as a concrete entity'. I simply don't accept the claims of theists as they have no evidence for them.

Just as you have no evidence for yours.

Chas, I am going to hold you to your own standards here and respectfully request that you stop being so presumptuous. Ask me what I mean, don't presume you know and stop speaking on behalf of me.

Phil

Except I haven't done either of those.
I conclude from your cosmic godwoo that you are not an atheist, and I quoted you making a silly generalization about atheists and showed you were wrong.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.